Gosling's Grouse: The dangers of 'institutionalising fairness'

It is surely no coincidence that Jeremy Corbyn's announcement that he would like to 'institutionalise fairness' and Oxfam's list of wealth disparity came out within days of each other.

On what is now called 'Blue Monday', Oxfam told us the world's richest 62 people are worth more than entire nations put together. Strangely, it has never bothered me that Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg have got more money than me. They are, after all, much smarter than me and invented things which billions of people use. Isn't that fairness? But Oxfam's stats do tap into the feeling among some that 'big business' is not fair, even if part of that debate or discussion is not rational. Similarly, when Corbyn announced a future Labour government under his leadership would look to legis...